Last post I mentioned that I had an appointment to get my hubcaps replaced. It got a little . . . strange. I was trying very hard not to roll my eyes, or use my grown-up voice and say "repeat after me."
To repeat the back story - when I found that I had two missing hubcaps, and that the third wasn't on properly, I remembered that I had the tires rotated during routine maintenance - for which they would have to remove and replace the hubcaps.
I pulled up and the guy came out to check me in. I pointed out the hubcap that I had zip tied on so it also wouldn't have fallen off like the other two. He looked at his paperwork and said he thought they were replacing all four hubcaps. OK.
I'm in the waiting room, and a little while later he comes in to explain that they were actually only going to replace the two missing ones, and wanted to be sure I was all right with that. I was - there's nothing wrong with the other two. But I added - and also replace the third one I pointed out. He gave me a blank look. "We're only replacing two of them." I said yes, but the third one had to be taken off and installed properly.
I could tell that my words were not even going in one ear and out the other - they were simply bouncing off (this was the same guy that I had pointed out my zip-tied repair job to).
A short time later he comes to get me because they're finished. I look - and my third hubcap is still zip-tied on. I point this out. He looks confused. I say that it needs to be taken off and put on properly. He leaves for a minute and comes back with someone else - who proceeds to feel around the hubcap to see if it's loose. I pull out my phone because fortunately I took a video of me running my hand under the hubcap before I took a mallet to it to try to snap it into place and put on the zip ties to keep it there (because the clips weren't on the holding wires.
Then I started to do whatever the little-old-lady version of mansplaining is (perhaps gransplaining?) I showed them that the valve stem was in a position where the hubcap would make it difficult to attach an air hose. I carefully pointed out the notch in the hubcap and (I may have been using a bit of my grown-up voice by then) and said it was there for the valve stem so that the hubcap wouldn't have to be removed to put air in the tire.
They both still looked confused but said they would go ask - and back to the waiting room I went. Thank goodness, pretty soon Bruce came in (the guy I had been talking to on the phone) and apparently he figured it out and the hubcap had been installed properly.
I've been going to this Honda place for some 25 years without a problem. Hope they didn't screw up anything else (it was an oil and filter change - and everything seems to be working)
It may not be the shop's fault. I was talking to Christy - between her and Rik, they're the type who knows everybody - and she said that a lot of places, Honda included, are cutting costs by firing their senior techs and hiring new inexperienced ones at a much lower rate. Gotta say - that's a crappy way to do business.
But at least I got my hubcaps.
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